Die Heinzelmännchen

Excerpt from “Die Heinzelmännchen”:

How comfortable it used to be at Cölln 
With the Heinzelmännchen there! 
If one was lazy 
One just rested on a bench and took it easy. 
They came by night before one even thought about it: 
The little men - and they swarmed 
And clapped, made noise, and plucked and pulled, 
And hopped and trotted, polished and scraped. 
And before a lazy fellow woke up 
His entire day's work was done.

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Nobody wants to get their work done. Or better yet, no one wants to have to do work in the first place. For us now, that might mean we procrastinate on homework, we stay in the pool until we look like prunes, and we complain. Another way to go about not doing your work is to make stories of how you wished someone else would do the work for you. 

It is not too much of a surprise that people back in the 19th century took part in that sort of activity. No one wanted work then either!

A popular myth within Germanic history is that of the Heinzelmännchen. The Heinzelmännchen were a race of small house gnomes. The idea is similar to that of many others, but while a tailor sleeps, the Heinzelmännchen will come and finish his work for him. Then, when he wakes up, there will be finished work and he can be permitted to be lazy. This is shown in the excerpt above. However, the tailor’s wife gets frustrated with this and scatters peas around, to annoy the Heinzelmännchen. They do get frustrated and they never come again!

Curious was the tailor's wife 
And found herself a way to pass the time: 
She scattered some peas the next night. 
The Heinzelmännchen came cautiously: 
One tripped, fell down in the house, 
They slipped down the steps 
And plopped into vats! 
They fell with a bang, 
They hollered and screamed and cursed! 
She jumped at the noise with a light: 
Husch, husch, husch - they all vanished!

This was written in 19^th century Germany at the same time as the industrial revolution (which Germany was very involved and powerful in). A big part of the industrial revolution was this advancement in technology where we start using machines and more complicated structures to finish our work instead of simple tools and our own hands. A thought that came to mind when realizing this was that there was as new work dynamic coming into play at this point in time (mid 1700’s to mid 1800’s). There is this idea coming more into play of there being less work for an individual than before. There’s an easier way to get many things finished. What if the myth of the Heinzelmännchen could be a bit in response to the idea of other things doing work for us?

Of course, there are similar stories to this that were written long before the industrial revolution, but it’d be interesting if the writing of it was indeed, in response to the idea of an easier way of life.

It seems to be a human quality to put off many things that we’re supposed to do, but just won’t. We’re such a sensitive species where we’re incredibly picky about what we want to do! And these sorts of stories are so common across the world that it shows how we’re all united…in creatively complaining!

If you’re interested, here’s a link to the full (translated) version of the poem that the Heinzelmännchen were originally mentioned in:

http://www.steincollectors.org/library/articles/heinzel/colln.html

Big Man Myths

Big Man Myths

“The world of Giants prepared the way for the world we know today.

The world of Giants is the subject of legend.

The legends tell the history of our People, and

Teach us by example how to live and die.”

From the Yakama Nation Museum

                In the time when this country was still young, it was viewed as a big land with big challenges. In response the Americans made some big man myths. The two men that stand apart in size and strength are Alfred Bulltop Stormalong, and Paul Bunyan with his blue ox Babe. The stories of these men portray them as towering over others and creating things to match their size. These men through myth and folktale helped to shape the world we live in.

                Stormalong is guessed to have been a 30 foot tall man who sails a ship with a hinged mast so it won’t catch on the moon, so long that his men had to ride horses from one end to the other, and so wide that it had to squeeze through the English channel. The passage was so tight that the scraping caused the white cliffs of dover. He swam to the bottom of the Atlantic to wrestle with a giant octopus that was holding onto his ships anchor. His lifelong rival was a Kraken (Giant Squid) who he fought several time and finally beat by trapping it in a whirlpool. There are several different endings to his long life. One is that he ate himself to death, the second that he worked himself to death steering his ship during a race. The final one is that he saved a bunch of ships and sailors during a hurricane only to be swept away himself at the end.

Now Paul Bunyan was said to be 64 axe handles high. When you do the math on that it comes out to be about 95 feet tall. Babe the blue ox was supposed to have grown so big it took a murder of crows a day to fly down his length, he even had a mate Bessie the Yeller Cow, who was built on the same frame. Babe and Paul were attributed with many great things from pulling roads straight, to creating mountain ranges. Many of the tales around him were also fairly comical. Things like boys skating around on a stove with butter on their feet in order to make flapjacks for Paul.

                What is it about America that made us create these giants to help in the shaping of our world? Not just saying that big men did big deeds in how they worked, but that they physically shaped the world we live in. Stormalong fought against things that sailors feared like the kraken and saving other ships from hurricanes. While Paul Bunyan was a hardworking man who served as an inspiration to others, for his hard and problem solving. Stories told to entertain and to a degree explain things.

http://www.americanfolklore.net/index.html